een, three hundred and eighty. But the Persians were infinitely
more numerously manned, having on board of each vessel thirty
men-at-arms, in addition to the usual number of two hundred. Plutarch
seems to state the whole number in each Athenian vessel to be fourteen
heavy armed and four bowmen. But this would make the whole Athenian
force only three thousand two hundred and forty men, including the
bowmen, who were probably not Athenian citizens. It must therefore be
supposed, with Mr. Thirlwall, that the eighteen men thus specified were
an addition to the ordinary company.
[84] Aeschylus. Persae. 397.
[85] The Persian admiral at Salamis is asserted by Ctesias to have
been Onaphas, father-in-law to Xerxes. According to Herodotus, it was
Ariabignes, the king's brother, who seems the same as Artabazanes,
with whom he had disputed the throne.--Comp. Herod., lib. vii., c. 2,
and lib. viii., c. 89.
[86] Plut in vit. Them.
[87] Plut. in vit. Them. The Ariamenes of Plutarch is the Ariabignes
of Herodotus.
[88] Mr. Mitford, neglecting to observe this error of Xerxes,
especially noted by Herodotus, merely observes--"According to
Herodotus, though in this instance we may have difficulty to give him
entire credit, Xerxes, from the shore where he sat, saw, admired, and
applauded the exploit." From this passage one would suppose that
Xerxes knew it was a friend who had been attacked, and then, indeed,
we could not have credited the account; but if he and those about him
supposed it, as Herodotus states, a foe, what is there incredible?
This is one instance in ten thousand more important ones, of Mr.
Mitford's habit of arguing upon one sentence by omitting those that
follow and precede it.
[89] Diod., lib xi., c. 5. Herod., lib. viii., c. 110. Nepos, et
Plut, in vit. Them.
[90] Plut. in vit. Them.
[91] Ibid. These anecdotes have the stamp of authenticity.
[92] Herod., lib. viii., c. 125. See Wesseling's Comment on
Timodemus. Plutarch tells the same anecdote, but makes the baffled
rebuker of Themistocles a citizen of Seriphus, an island in which,
according to Aelian, the frogs never croaked; the men seem to have
made up for the silence of the frogs!
[93] See Fast. Hell., vol. ii., page 26.
[94] Plut. in vit. Arist.
[95] Ibid.
[96] The custom of lapidation was common to the earlier ages; it had
a kind of sanction, too, in particular offences; and no crime could be
considered by
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